Employees of X and Meta recently met with members of a group led by allies of former President Trump who allegedly worked to overturn President Biden’s victory in 2020.
On August 6, X’s Head of US Elections Caroline Strom and its Lead Client Partner Matthew Madrazo took part in a panel at a Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) event in New York City for members of the organization’s Veritas Fellowship, a digital media training program for conservative communications professionals. The panel was described in a CPI trip itinerary posted to the website of the U.S. House Clerk as focusing on the “role of Twitter/X in public policy discourse.”
Seven Republican House staffers were listed on the disclosure as attendees. Five of the staffers work for representatives who voted against certifying election results in 2020, and the other two work for representatives who were not yet in office at that time.
Some of CPI’s top leaders were deeply involved with Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election result. Former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is a senior partner at CPI. He is currently facing criminal charges in Arizona and Georgia for his role in trying to overturn President Biden’s electoral victory in 2020. Another top CPI figure, Senior Legal Fellow Cleta Mitchell, advised Trump on a January 2020 phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during which Trump pressured him to “find” thousands of ballots with his name checked off for president.
"Our team attends events across the political spectrum, as well as non-partisan events, to share best practices and insights," an X spokesperson told Sludge. “The team is at the DNC this week supporting their use of the platform, as a timely example, and also the Reed Awards.” The Reed Awards are an annual event for political campaign professionals.
A YouTube video posted in early June shows Strom speaking about social media content strategy at an event of the Leadership Institute, a right-wing organization founded in 1979 by Morton Blackwell. Among its advocacy training in campaigns and communications, the institute touts its work to “help conservative students defeat the radical left on campus.”
Madrazo has been put in charge of reviving X’s political advertising revenues, with a particular focus on reaching out to Republican political advertisers, according to Semafor.
The attendees of the CPI trip also met with Meta’s Arpit Patel, government and social impact, and Josh Althouse, public policy manager, to discuss “Meta’s role in public policy discourse, the role of AI in news media, and the future of social media evolution.” Patel was a former digital director for Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), and Althouse worked as conservative outreach director for the office of former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) from February 2016 to July 2018, before becoming a lobbyist for Meta.
Corey Chambliss, global communications for elections and governance at Meta, said the CPI event was “fairly routine,” and that it was similar to other recent engagements Meta has had with organizations including Everytown for Gun Safety, the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, and The Trevor Project.
